Video Provides Clues to Bomber

By

Devlin Barrett and

Evan Perez

Updated April 17, 2013 7:44 p.m. ET

ENLARGE

Federal investigators said Wednesday they are working to identify a person in a video who appeared to leave a bag in the spot where one of two bombs later exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

Peter Nicholas explains President Obama's visit to Boston in the wake of the Marathon bombings marks a renewed effort to appear more in touch with the emotional needs of people affected. Photo: Getty Images.

Authorities also are trying to identify at least one other person seen in videos of the crowd, according to people familiar with the matter.

Boston Bomb Remains

Photographs from the site of the bombings show twisted metal pieces, wire fragments, and what appears to be a small circuit board.

This photo taken by investigators show the remains of an explosive device. Reuters

The new information emerged on a day of roller-coaster emotions in the city where three were killed and more than 175 injured Monday. Several news organizations reported that a suspect was in custody and would be transported to the federal courthouse in Boston, prompting crowds to gather there, but authorities later said no arrest had been made.

The quest to tease useful information from a mountain of evidence, including what one lawmaker called the equivalent of hundreds of hours of video, bore its first fruit with the images of the suspicious person near the marathon's finish line.

Investigators pored over surveillance video from retail stores and restaurants near the bombing site as well as video and photographs from citizens, news organizations and other sources, officials said.

The officials stopped short of calling the person with the bag a formal suspect in the attack, after past cases where initial investigative targets turned out to be innocent.

The two explosives were placed in black bags or backpacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has said, and officials said the bag seen in the video seemed to be made from material similar to the shreds of black nylon found at the bombing site.

Investigators have determined the bombs were assembled from household pressure cookers, a crude but effective explosive that has been thwarted in several prior U.S. terror plots.

Terror in the U.S.

Site of the Blasts

Authorities found a pressure-cooker lid, believed to have been part of a bomb, that was catapulted onto the roof of a nearby building, a person briefed on the investigation said Wednesday. They also found a small piece of a circuit board they suspect was part of one of the explosive devices, the person said.

Government officials cautioned that the person they are seeking to identify from the video could be unconnected to the attack.

In the 2010 failed bombing in Times Square, investigators urged the public to help identify a person wearing a red shirt who was seen in a video leaving the scene. That person, it later turned out, had nothing to do with the incident.

The developments came amid a backdrop of bomb scares and other incidents across the nation. Suspicious parcels, reported bomb threats and seemingly odd pieces of mail prompted evacuations and emergency alerts from Washington to Arizona to Michigan.

The Boston federal courthouse was briefly evacuated because of a false alarm. In Washington, a letter sent to President Barack Obama initially tested positive for the poison ricin.

Kenneth Feinberg, who administered the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund and the BP oil spill fund, on Wednesday was asked by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino to distribute funds that would assist victims of the bombings, called the One Fund Boston. Mr. Feinberg, in an interview, said the fund, which has about $7 million dollars that was unsolicited, would distribute money quickly. The types of claims would depend on the overall amount of the fund, he said, with priority given to families of the dead. Mr. Feinberg will begin his duties on Friday.

Video

Devlin Barrett explains the significance of the use of a pressure cooker that authorities believed was used in the Boston Marathon bombings. He also points out past attacks in which pressure cookers were also used. Photo: AP Images.

The FBI and other officials are working through the Boston bombing's crime scene to piece together answers in the wake of the incident. Dan Defenbaugh, Defenbaugh & Associates founder and a former FBI bomb technician, explains what happens next. Photo: Joint Terrorism Task Force of Boston via Reuters.

The mourning for the victims of Monday's attack reached northeastern China, home of the third person killed in the blasts, Lu Lingzi. The Boston University graduate student was in the crowd near the finish line with another Chinese student who was injured, China's official news agency said.

Also killed in Monday's attacks were 8-year-old Martin Richard of Boston's Dorchester section, whose mother and sister were seriously injured; and 29-year-old Krystle Campbell, a restaurant manager from Medford, Mass.

Some said the rapid detection of a potential perpetrator or perpetrators of the attack shows the value of the growing number of surveillance cameras around the nation—a trend that has been decried by some civil-liberties groups.

The bombing prompted a reassessment of whether security measures at coming races are adequate. Organizers of an April 28 marathon in Oklahoma City said they would recheck what already represents a high level of security for such an event.

ENLARGE

A Boston police officer on Wednesday stood at a makeshift memorial near the site of Monday's explosions at the marathon finish line.
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The bombs appeared to have been built by packing the pressure cookers with a black powder explosive as well as nails and pellets to maximize casualties, a lawmaker briefed by investigators said. The pressure cooker concentrates the blast, magnifying the effect of relatively weak explosives.

The devices are similar to those U.S. counterterrorism officials have warned about for years. Authorities said such bomb-making has been taught at terrorist camps in Afghanistan. In addition, instructions for making pressure-cooker bombs are available on the Internet.

Corrections & Amplifications The FBI and the Boston police department said no arrests have been made in the case. An earlier version of this article said a suspect was in custody, citing an Associated Press report.

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